Piney Point, MD

Piney Point, known locally as The Point, is a St. Mary's County census-designated place on the Potomac River, with 980 residents in the 2020 census. The shoreline is the whole story here: St. George Island is linked by a short bridge, beach houses face the water, and the community's main landmarks are maritime. Piney Point Lighthouse Museum and Historic Park has the oldest lighthouse on the Potomac, a six-acre park, pier, beach, and kayak launch. Offshore, the U-1105 Black Panther submarine rests in the Potomac as a historic shipwreck preserve. The other big piece is the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education, a working school for deep-sea and inland-waterway mariners.

It offers entry-level and continuing vocational training, and its campus includes a library and maritime museum. The site once served as a U.S. Navy torpedo test range in the 1940s, so Piney Point's older Navy housing and maritime school are part of the same shoreline story. Living here means the Potomac is both scenery and infrastructure: it shapes the roads, the landmarks, the work, and the way the community connects to the county.